Abby Kettner

In Place of You - First Iteration

In her installation "In Place of You", Canadian artist Abby Kettner attempts to temper the chaotic, unreliable, and intangible nature of memory by charting her evocative memories, cast into latex squares, onto a fading blue chalk-line grid representing the ethereal nature of time and space. The squares dance lyrically across the grid, defying its rigidity as they lean into Flux. Twenty-one hold casts of objects emotionally evocative to Kettner; the rest are plain, place markers for memories yet to be, their shadows nodding to the passage of time. Installed with nails, hooks, staples, and t-pins, they become damaged with each installation, as memories become damaged with each recall. - Andria Keen

“"In Place of You" speaks to the complex kinship between objects and memories. While using everyday objects from my life as containers for feelings and experiences, I have found that objects most often fail to hold all of the meaning I try to instill within them. The imperfect copies of the objects embodied in the translucent, latex skins show the slippages of memory. These multiple, flawed, ghost-like layers suggest a shared history and investigate the intricacy of human relationships. ”